7 ms·

One of the reasons people don't like Comic Sans is because it was overused, largely thanks to being included with a bunch of default Microsoft tools. It was als

by tikhonj 14y ago

One of the reasons people don't like Comic Sans is because it was overused, largely thanks to being included with a bunch of default Microsoft tools. It was also use in the wrong contexts. Amusingly, I think the same holds true of the typeface that sparked the whole thing: Time New Roman. Far too many people use it for far too much, sometimes in the wrong context. So maybe we should all use Times less too! (I tend to use Palatino or Garamond myself.) I'm tired of seeing the same few fonts everywhere. For whatever reason Times and Comic Sans really stand out, but this really holds for all the "web-safe" fonts--which also happen to be the fonts everyone used to flock to in Microsoft Word. Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document.

ameen 14y ago
Microsoft did partly address that by making Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts. But really, basic knowledge about Typography would help a great deal in creating decent looking content. A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print.
- Surio 14y ago
  >> Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts. >> A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print. You are very correct. So, in a way, Microsoft got it all mixed up in the font selection thing mentioned above, no?
  - hdra 14y ago
    Cambia is a serif, while Calibiri is a sans. How is it mixed up?
    - Surio 14y ago
      A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web the inverse is true for print. i.e., Sans for header and Serif for body for print documents. Now, re-read this: Microsoft did partly address that by making Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts (for Word) Did they get it mixed up? I think so.
      - randomchars 14y ago
        I would think that was a conscious choice. My impression is that people print much less today than ten years ago.
        Surio 14y ago
        Oh dear, this is turning into one of those "You say Tomahto, I say tomato" kind of discussion.... even though I did not intend it to be. Personally, I think there is no point splitting hairs over whether they goofed up or whether it was intended... MS-Word as a product is intended for the "write it, and then print it" market (whether the actual printing happens or not is another thing altogether), and for that demographic, the typographic convention is Serif for body text and Sans (not a necessary condition, though) for heading [0]. And from that point of view, the design choice is mixed up. Right or Wrong, that was the only point I was trying to make. [0] Again, I am aware that "is serif readable?" is a different can-of-worms altogether.
        PeterisP 14y ago
        The parent poster seems to imply that Word nowadays is not intended for the "write it, and then print it" market anymore - while it was aimed for that a dozen years ago, currently MS is deliberately targeting it more towards creating non-printable documents. I.e., it's not the design choice that's wrong, but the assumptions about who Word is now intended for.
        Surio 14y ago
        Not sure you read my reply? (note the italics part below) >> MS-Word as a product is intended for the "write it, and then print it" market (whether the actual printing happens or not is another thing altogether), and for that demographic, the typographic convention is Serif for body text Same convention holds true for typesetting packages like Quark/InDesign/LaTeX, etc. The established convention for documents cranked out is what I mentioned earlier... So regardless of parent poster's/your opinions [0] on this topic, the choice is mixed up because body text ought to be Serif (and heading something else if needed). [0] it's not the design choice that's wrong, but the assumptions about who Word is now intended for
- abhinavk 14y ago
  In Word 2013, Calibri Light is used for header instead of Cambria.
- nchlswu 14y ago
  >A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print. For whatever it's worth, these conventions are largely unfounded. With respect to readability or legibility alone, a majority of any research of a sans vs a serif has been weak or contradictory; you can't make a conclusion either way. These studies are often cited which continues to perpetuate the myth, While I admittedly do prefer these conventions, they're largely arbitrary and shaped by historical precedent and evolved over time. For example, poor resolution screens were the primary reason to use serifs, yet I've heard plenty of questionable rationale for it over time
Surio 14y ago
Thanks. This is what I wanted to say as well. I am heartily sick of Times/Arial/Comic as you rightly said. Hell, I even saw it on some road sign/car parking bays where some kind of large Sans (Highway Sans??) is legally obligatory! Now Times as replace the venerable Courier New in US govt. documents.... Oh the horror! For me it was anything but those. :-) +1 for Palatino/Garamond. I also read somewhere that Garamond uses less ink too (but readability on A5 for fonts less than 11 pt is somewhat hard) Serif: I am partial to Century Schoolbook myself because it is eminently readable by all ages (on 10pt no less!) on A5 sizes. (I read somewhere that this was the first font that launched Knuth's imagination on kerning, etc. (in a nice way), and his life long fascination for typography) Sans-Serif: Century Gothic - thin but very readable on small sizes as well. I later found out that this font takes up less printer ink while being printed as well. So double yay! >> Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document Very true. At least in this day and age of fontsquirrel, dafont, urbanfont, etc. etc.... there is no excuse to spend at least 15 mins to look for some interesting fonts. :-)
- crististm 14y ago
  Thanks for pointing out the Century Schoolbook. I stumbled on it on some old hardware and liked the numbers very much. Now I know the name of the font.
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    Latex has a package for New Century Schoolbook. After I found that, I used it for all my University work. It is just that awesome, and if you are pressed for space, you can make the size quite small without anybody noticing. I still haven't found a free version of it on the net though.
    - Surio 14y ago
      If you are looking for "free" alternatives for other plaforms, here are some close relatives and provide the same 'features' that one expects from Century. Plus, they are free. :-) You're welcome. ;-) These sets below, are complete (R, SC, B ,IT, B+IT...) fonts AFAIK. http://www.dafont.com/justus.font http://www.dafont.com/justus.font http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Latin-Modern-Roman http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Latin-Modern-Roman http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Schola http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Schola http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Bonum http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Bonum -- Bookman clone. These are not complete, but they are close relatives. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Didot http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Didot http://www.fontsquirrel.com/foundry/Alexey-Kryukov http://www.fontsquirrel.com/foundry/Alexey-Kryukov http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Old-Standard-TT http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Old-Standard-TT http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Bentham http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Bentham http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/DubielPlain http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/DubielPlain http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Modern http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Modern Here are some ripoff fonts... http://www.fonts101.com/search/bodoni http://www.fonts101.com/search/bodoni
jeremyswank 14y ago
I don't really understand the hate on Times. It's more or less the perfect neutral font when you want to say "I didn't make a choice because this document is of a nature where a design choice need not or should not be made." It is sufficiently serious that the reader is not distracted from the content of the writing by the character of the letter forms. It's neutral, and a non-choice, in my opinion.
tjoff 14y ago
No one has ever been fired for choosing Times ;) Seriously, people don't care and they don't choose Time as much as it is either the default or the only font they know of. And honestly, I use the default pretty much all the time (which seldom is Times nowadays). Back in early school I was told Verdana was better and since it was more spacious that made a strong argument for it as well, since it was easier to fill a page... I truly don't feel that I can say that a font is better than another one. It might look better but that might just as well be in a comic-sans way which would just be a disaster. Afraid of that I keep to the default. Word processors should be much better at communicating this, the only thing they do is give you a default but other than that offer no help. For the typical person that whole font list would be better off removed entirely (and yet it has always had such a high priority among the GUI settings).
- Zecc 14y ago
  Verdana is the font I'm reading these comments in.
  - ekimekim 14y ago
    This bring up a good point. When reading documents (not so much posters, etc), I'd rather put the user in control of the display font. They can choose whatever is easiest for them to read, and it's uniform everywhere they go. For example, a friend of mine has his firefox set to use a fixed-width font on all pages. This is something no graphic designer would ever do, but he likes it.
doomlaser 14y ago
Speaking of fonts losing favor because of overuse, look what's happened to Gotham since the Obama campaign used it in their 2008 campaign. I first saw it used in the old Chicago 2016 olympics pitches [1], and then started seeing it more and more, but after the presidential campaign [2], it started showing up everywhere [3] to the point that it's lost much of its original power and mystique. [1] http://sarabot2000.typepad.com/sara/images/2007/06/05/chicago_2016.jpg http://sarabot2000.typepad.com/sara/images/2007/06/05/chicag... [2] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIPdMUeGhI/AAAAAAAAA98/CsU0OTQWL9M/s400/2008-10-11-BarackisHope.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIPdMUeGhI/AAAAAAAAA9... [3] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIUjyKhjsI/AAAAAAAAA_8/1wjnfMNLHic/s1600/daniel_hertzberg_wendys_dave_thomas.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIUjyKhjsI/AAAAAAAAA_...
tripzilch 14y ago
If you know how to select Comic Sans, you know how to select a different serif like Times. In default Windows installs there's at least 3-5 other choices for "serious serif font". And people do that, also the less tech-savvy ones: if they just want to type their homework, it's Times (or Arial), no second thought. But if it's something they want to "stand out" or be different they can easily pick a substitute like Georgia from the list. But if people just write a note, or anything they intend to come across as "not too stern, not too serious, but also not too boring" there is just Comic Sans, in the default list of Windows fonts. Like another commenter said, it's like a market is underserved. Except it's not a market, because it's Windows' default font list (there's enough alternatives on the market). It needs another informal, slightly quirky font if you want to break the reign of Comic Sans. They might have gone a bit in this direction with Calibri (subtly rounded) and Candara (playful) but those are way too subtle to notice in the (oddly tiny) font selection lists. And something else, IMO, Times News Roman is for me the example that, apart from popularity and being an over-used default font, there is something extra wrong with Comic Sans. After all those years of being negatively conditioned with Times as the default Apache 404 Error font, and so many other places, all that's caused is a strong notion of neutrality and blandness. I don't dislike Times, and I also believe there is no discussion on that it's strictly better designed than Comic Sans: it's got more glyphs, the letter forms are more constant and harmonious, etc. And with some thought[0], you can combine it with another font (Arial being the obvious choice) and use it in a headline/body text combo, and it actually doesn't even look half bad. Somebody put some thought in that, it looks clean and they just happen to be two of the most-used fonts. I challenge anyone to pull that off with Comic Sans, even in combination with another font. Personally I think, add just one cool informal font to the Windows default list, and IMO it will be fine. Really the thing that bothers me most about Comic Sans is that it's the only choice [for people not savvy enough to install extra fonts], so I can't really fault anyone for using it because any alternative I could suggest involves quite a bit of extra work for them (in addition it might revert to some default font on the next office PC where it's not available). [0] this almost always means: whitespace
seez 14y ago
What about Mistral? Do you think it's been abused? I'm from Montreal and it's been use everywhere. Just look at this and tell me it's hasn't been used a lot! Maybe more than Comic Sans and we never hear about it. http://www.mattsoar.org/gallery/Mistral http://www.mattsoar.org/gallery/Mistral Everything from movie posters(Drive,Flashdance), to asian restaurants and much more.

by tikhonj 14y ago

ameen 14y ago

Microsoft did partly address that by making Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts. But really, basic knowledge about Typography would help a great deal in creating decent looking content. A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print.

Surio 14y ago
>> Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts. >> A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print. You are very correct. So, in a way, Microsoft got it all mixed up in the font selection thing mentioned above, no?
- hdra 14y ago
  Cambia is a serif, while Calibiri is a sans. How is it mixed up?
  - Surio 14y ago
    A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web the inverse is true for print. i.e., Sans for header and Serif for body for print documents. Now, re-read this: Microsoft did partly address that by making Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts (for Word) Did they get it mixed up? I think so.
    - randomchars 14y ago
      I would think that was a conscious choice. My impression is that people print much less today than ten years ago.
      - Surio 14y ago
        Oh dear, this is turning into one of those "You say Tomahto, I say tomato" kind of discussion.... even though I did not intend it to be. Personally, I think there is no point splitting hairs over whether they goofed up or whether it was intended... MS-Word as a product is intended for the "write it, and then print it" market (whether the actual printing happens or not is another thing altogether), and for that demographic, the typographic convention is Serif for body text and Sans (not a necessary condition, though) for heading [0]. And from that point of view, the design choice is mixed up. Right or Wrong, that was the only point I was trying to make. [0] Again, I am aware that "is serif readable?" is a different can-of-worms altogether.
        PeterisP 14y ago
        The parent poster seems to imply that Word nowadays is not intended for the "write it, and then print it" market anymore - while it was aimed for that a dozen years ago, currently MS is deliberately targeting it more towards creating non-printable documents. I.e., it's not the design choice that's wrong, but the assumptions about who Word is now intended for.
        Surio 14y ago
        Not sure you read my reply? (note the italics part below) >> MS-Word as a product is intended for the "write it, and then print it" market (whether the actual printing happens or not is another thing altogether), and for that demographic, the typographic convention is Serif for body text Same convention holds true for typesetting packages like Quark/InDesign/LaTeX, etc. The established convention for documents cranked out is what I mentioned earlier... So regardless of parent poster's/your opinions [0] on this topic, the choice is mixed up because body text ought to be Serif (and heading something else if needed). [0] it's not the design choice that's wrong, but the assumptions about who Word is now intended for
abhinavk 14y ago
In Word 2013, Calibri Light is used for header instead of Cambria.
nchlswu 14y ago
>A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print. For whatever it's worth, these conventions are largely unfounded. With respect to readability or legibility alone, a majority of any research of a sans vs a serif has been weak or contradictory; you can't make a conclusion either way. These studies are often cited which continues to perpetuate the myth, While I admittedly do prefer these conventions, they're largely arbitrary and shaped by historical precedent and evolved over time. For example, poor resolution screens were the primary reason to use serifs, yet I've heard plenty of questionable rationale for it over time

Surio 14y ago

Thanks. This is what I wanted to say as well. I am heartily sick of Times/Arial/Comic as you rightly said. Hell, I even saw it on some road sign/car parking bays where some kind of large Sans (Highway Sans??) is legally obligatory! Now Times as replace the venerable Courier New in US govt. documents.... Oh the horror! For me it was anything but those. :-) +1 for Palatino/Garamond. I also read somewhere that Garamond uses less ink too (but readability on A5 for fonts less than 11 pt is somewhat hard) Serif: I am partial to Century Schoolbook myself because it is eminently readable by all ages (on 10pt no less!) on A5 sizes. (I read somewhere that this was the first font that launched Knuth's imagination on kerning, etc. (in a nice way), and his life long fascination for typography) Sans-Serif: Century Gothic - thin but very readable on small sizes as well. I later found out that this font takes up less printer ink while being printed as well. So double yay! >> Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document Very true. At least in this day and age of fontsquirrel, dafont, urbanfont, etc. etc.... there is no excuse to spend at least 15 mins to look for some interesting fonts. :-)

crististm 14y ago
Thanks for pointing out the Century Schoolbook. I stumbled on it on some old hardware and liked the numbers very much. Now I know the name of the font.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  Latex has a package for New Century Schoolbook. After I found that, I used it for all my University work. It is just that awesome, and if you are pressed for space, you can make the size quite small without anybody noticing. I still haven't found a free version of it on the net though.
  - Surio 14y ago
    If you are looking for "free" alternatives for other plaforms, here are some close relatives and provide the same 'features' that one expects from Century. Plus, they are free. :-) You're welcome. ;-) These sets below, are complete (R, SC, B ,IT, B+IT...) fonts AFAIK. http://www.dafont.com/justus.font http://www.dafont.com/justus.font http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Latin-Modern-Roman http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Latin-Modern-Roman http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Schola http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Schola http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Bonum http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Bonum -- Bookman clone. These are not complete, but they are close relatives. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Didot http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Didot http://www.fontsquirrel.com/foundry/Alexey-Kryukov http://www.fontsquirrel.com/foundry/Alexey-Kryukov http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Old-Standard-TT http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Old-Standard-TT http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Bentham http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Bentham http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/DubielPlain http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/DubielPlain http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Modern http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Theano-Modern Here are some ripoff fonts... http://www.fonts101.com/search/bodoni http://www.fonts101.com/search/bodoni

jeremyswank 14y ago

I don't really understand the hate on Times. It's more or less the perfect neutral font when you want to say "I didn't make a choice because this document is of a nature where a design choice need not or should not be made." It is sufficiently serious that the reader is not distracted from the content of the writing by the character of the letter forms. It's neutral, and a non-choice, in my opinion.

tjoff 14y ago

No one has ever been fired for choosing Times ;) Seriously, people don't care and they don't choose Time as much as it is either the default or the only font they know of. And honestly, I use the default pretty much all the time (which seldom is Times nowadays). Back in early school I was told Verdana was better and since it was more spacious that made a strong argument for it as well, since it was easier to fill a page... I truly don't feel that I can say that a font is better than another one. It might look better but that might just as well be in a comic-sans way which would just be a disaster. Afraid of that I keep to the default. Word processors should be much better at communicating this, the only thing they do is give you a default but other than that offer no help. For the typical person that whole font list would be better off removed entirely (and yet it has always had such a high priority among the GUI settings).

Zecc 14y ago
Verdana is the font I'm reading these comments in.
- ekimekim 14y ago
  This bring up a good point. When reading documents (not so much posters, etc), I'd rather put the user in control of the display font. They can choose whatever is easiest for them to read, and it's uniform everywhere they go. For example, a friend of mine has his firefox set to use a fixed-width font on all pages. This is something no graphic designer would ever do, but he likes it.

doomlaser 14y ago

Speaking of fonts losing favor because of overuse, look what's happened to Gotham since the Obama campaign used it in their 2008 campaign. I first saw it used in the old Chicago 2016 olympics pitches [1], and then started seeing it more and more, but after the presidential campaign [2], it started showing up everywhere [3] to the point that it's lost much of its original power and mystique. [1] http://sarabot2000.typepad.com/sara/images/2007/06/05/chicago_2016.jpg http://sarabot2000.typepad.com/sara/images/2007/06/05/chicag... [2] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIPdMUeGhI/AAAAAAAAA98/CsU0OTQWL9M/s400/2008-10-11-BarackisHope.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIPdMUeGhI/AAAAAAAAA9... [3] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIUjyKhjsI/AAAAAAAAA_8/1wjnfMNLHic/s1600/daniel_hertzberg_wendys_dave_thomas.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIUjyKhjsI/AAAAAAAAA_...

tripzilch 14y ago

If you know how to select Comic Sans, you know how to select a different serif like Times. In default Windows installs there's at least 3-5 other choices for "serious serif font". And people do that, also the less tech-savvy ones: if they just want to type their homework, it's Times (or Arial), no second thought. But if it's something they want to "stand out" or be different they can easily pick a substitute like Georgia from the list. But if people just write a note, or anything they intend to come across as "not too stern, not too serious, but also not too boring" there is just Comic Sans, in the default list of Windows fonts. Like another commenter said, it's like a market is underserved. Except it's not a market, because it's Windows' default font list (there's enough alternatives on the market). It needs another informal, slightly quirky font if you want to break the reign of Comic Sans. They might have gone a bit in this direction with Calibri (subtly rounded) and Candara (playful) but those are way too subtle to notice in the (oddly tiny) font selection lists. And something else, IMO, Times News Roman is for me the example that, apart from popularity and being an over-used default font, there is something extra wrong with Comic Sans. After all those years of being negatively conditioned with Times as the default Apache 404 Error font, and so many other places, all that's caused is a strong notion of neutrality and blandness. I don't dislike Times, and I also believe there is no discussion on that it's strictly better designed than Comic Sans: it's got more glyphs, the letter forms are more constant and harmonious, etc. And with some thought[0], you can combine it with another font (Arial being the obvious choice) and use it in a headline/body text combo, and it actually doesn't even look half bad. Somebody put some thought in that, it looks clean and they just happen to be two of the most-used fonts. I challenge anyone to pull that off with Comic Sans, even in combination with another font. Personally I think, add just one cool informal font to the Windows default list, and IMO it will be fine. Really the thing that bothers me most about Comic Sans is that it's the only choice [for people not savvy enough to install extra fonts], so I can't really fault anyone for using it because any alternative I could suggest involves quite a bit of extra work for them (in addition it might revert to some default font on the next office PC where it's not available). [0] this almost always means: whitespace

seez 14y ago

What about Mistral? Do you think it's been abused? I'm from Montreal and it's been use everywhere. Just look at this and tell me it's hasn't been used a lot! Maybe more than Comic Sans and we never hear about it. http://www.mattsoar.org/gallery/Mistral http://www.mattsoar.org/gallery/Mistral Everything from movie posters(Drive,Flashdance), to asian restaurants and much more.